Undesirable: Chapter 10
TITLE: Undesirable (A vampire novel)
RATING: NC-17 (This chapter PG-13)
GENRE: Porn with plot -- heavy on the plot. Action/adventure, some black humor, some romance.
PAIRINGS: George x everyone. Mostly Slash, some het, three and moresomes. Vampire sex.
WARNINGS: (this chapter) none.
WORD COUNT: 6415
A/N: For some reason this chapter was especially tough to write.
Chapter 10
Sunday came and went as a nightmarish blur, a feverish mix of pain and unspeakable exhaustion, both mental and physical. I remember being stripped somewhat roughly of my clothes and tossed into a strange small bedroom. My dignity and future in shreds, I fell into a depressive funk so profound I literally crawled into the bed provided and hid under covers white eyelet and thick down. A constant barrage of strangers came and went, dawn broke, noon came and passed, but the activity never slowed down. In the brief lulls I slept fitfully, never more than an hour or two at a time, usually only a few minutes before either a knife-stroke pang of worry would wake me or more often someone would yell in my ear and shake my shoulder and insist I do something: stand to be measured, sit to be examined, bathe, eat, talk.
I hardly remember it to be honest. And for that I'm thankful.
After they all finally left, I crashed hard, taking all of Sunday night and most of Monday with me down some deep dreamless pit. When, at last, I finally clawed my way back up to consciousness, it wasn't the end of the world after all. Life kept on going, regardless of what I felt about it. It managed to be even somewhat boring.
You know, as prison cells go, my room in Nadette's quazi-cultish compound wasn't half bad. The trappings may have been a bit on the feminine side, as you might expect from someone who generally only deals with women, but not obnoxiously so. I liked the lace curtains and the pale violet walls with little rose stencil trim. The white bed with the tall, tall gold topped bedposts, and the silk wall hanging with the sun and rainbow. I appreciated the Victorian lines of the make-up vanity. It was all curiously wholesome and soothing, like a trip to an alternate childhood where I was born a girl.
--And who the fuck am I kidding. The place was sucking the very testosterone out of my bruised balls. Christ. At least they didn't insist I wear a dress and call myself Georgina.
Tuesday afternoon found me lying in bed, dully staring at the textured ceiling when I heard the distinct scratching noise of a key in the lock. I glanced over at the featureless round metal plate set where the thumb latch for the deadbolt should be. The first thing they'd done after dumping me in here was to retool the door so that they could come in any time they fucking wanted to, but I couldn't get out.
The door shuddered, sticking just a bit on the threshold, then swung outwards into the hall, and Claudia, my "day manager," strode into the room. She was a statuesque strawberry blonde -- high side of six-feet she'd told me when, seeing no point in sacrificing curiosity for tact, I'd asked her point blank. Time had been very good to her. Although she was pushing forty hard, she was in better shape than most twenty-somethings: lean and athletic, flat stomach, and strong looking arms. Good looking breasts, too, which I was trying to ignore, because thinking about that kind of thing just led to frustration. When she wasn't babysitting me, she ran the security for the compound. As Nadette's biggest security risk, I was her priority.
"Hup hup hup," she said cheerfully, clapping her hands gingerly together around a huge set of keys, like some camp councilor trying to rouse enthusiasm. I watched her attach the keys to her belt with unabashed wistfulness. That was my freedom hanging there, jingling against the swell of her thigh - the key to my room, to the monitoring cuff strapped to my ankle, possibly even the one to the lock on my cock.
"No time for sleeping. We need to get your blood moving! Did you eat your breakfast?"
I growled angrily at her, letting her know that I wasn't going to cooperate with the happy camper bullshit. I was in a foul mood. Not quite as foul as the one I'd nursed all Monday, but still pretty foul.
Her smile didn't fade but the corner of her eye twitched, and I felt the small bright flash of impotent joy.
"Do you need your sheets changed?" She asked sweetly. Well, touché.
"No," I said quickly. Added to the general humiliation, I'd had a hell of a wet dream Sunday night, judging by the amount of mess I woke up to the next afternoon. I assume I enjoyed it. I don't really know, I can't remember it at all, but at least it relieved the blue-balls ache quite a bit.
It did nothing to relieve the general sense of sexual frustration. The chastity tube was a heinous device that pinched if I had the temerity to have an erection. I'd done my best the last two and a half days to not think of anything that would arouse me. You might think that would be easy given how pissed off I was about my situation, but it had become the preverbal elephant.
My visitors were all women, and good looking ones at that. Some pixie faced, some handsome, all slim and nubile, their clothes hugging them in ways that accentuated their curves, sexuality barely hidden by the cut of their blouses. Argh.
And when I wasn't with one of them, I was left with thoughts of Nadette and Amy and the way their identical skirts climbed their thighs as they sat, giving forbidden glimpses of the smooth pale flesh riding up from the knee into tantalizing shadow. It was hard not to think of the sexual feelings I'd had in Nadette's presence… Amy's soft small hands and plump lips… and the sensation of her going down on me….
I tried thinking of men instead, men I'd worked with, my father, generic old guys at a generic park playing generic board games. Jeffrey… no not him. Not him. Wally! Pure, innocent, geeky Wally. Wally at his computer. Wally clowning around on the sofa. Wrestling for the remote. Wally wearing a towel slung low over his hips, abs defined, the swell of his buttocks, small perky nipples drawn up tight against the cold air, still wet from the shower. And oh, god that didn't work either.
Computers… porn. Baseball… hopelessly phallic, besides I didn't even like the game. Work, Jeffrey. Cars, Nadette. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I hated, hated that fucking chastity sleeve. Ow.
"Well, you don't want to hang out around here," Claudia went on cheerfully ignorant of my distress. "Let's go get some fresh air and do something fun."
Yes, please! Anything to stop thinking.
I rolled out of bed and hunted for the insanely expensive designer tennis shoes Nadette had so generously provided in place of the common sense and comfortable work shoes she'd stolen. None of my belongings had followed me into this room. My luggage was gone, probably never made it off the Greyhound bus. My I ♥ Chicago bag, lap top, and even my phone had been carried off during the stripping process, with no promises given that I'd ever get any of them back.
In their stead I'd been given a closet full of designer shit, which had been dumped unceremoniously on me, price tags attached, that first confusing afternoon of my capture. It made me feel uncomfortably in Nadette's debt, which annoyed me because I'd in no way asked for her to throw away her money on me like this. She could have simply fetched my clothes from the bus, or dressed me in Goodwill cast offs - I wouldn't have cared, but instead she'd spent nearly four grand on a wardrobe for a guy she didn't even plan to keep. What the fuck.
Maybe it was an image thing -- she didn't want a guy in non-designer duds sullying up her campus. Maybe. But the cynical side of me suspected she was just showing off that she had no actual need of the money I would fetch her. She was just putting me through the humiliation of an auction as some sort of punishment for being a defiant prick.
As a final proof that she was selling me downriver purely out of hatefulness, the one thing she did give me back was my wallet, including the $465 of contingency money I had left. Have back your cash, she seemed to say, while I make sure you'll never have the opportunity to spend a dime of it. Nonetheless I found it comforting to have the wallet back. There was a lot of sentimental shit in there I really didn't want to lose.
The only thing missing was the inaccurate bloodtrust card -- no more Greyhound bus rides for me. As if that were really an issue with all the other security measures Nadette had me under.
Bah.
While I finished putting on my shoes, Claudia had tracked down the remains of my breakfast in the garbage can. She suddenly made a disapproving squawk and put her hands on her hips. "George! Really!" she said scornfully. "You aren't going to make me watch you eat your meals are you?"
I paused in tugging the bottom of my jeans back over the tracking device strapped to my right ankle. "What are you going on about? I ate."
"There's beans in the trash!" she said, pointing, as if I might actually deny their existence.
"I don't like lima beans." I shrugged. "So, what, spending two hundred dollars on single pair of pants isn't wasteful, but throwing out twenty cents worth of vegetables is?"
"That's not the point, George. Your diet was drawn up specifically for you." She looked put out. "Now I'm going to have to order more for your dinner to make up for it. You need to be well nourished to build up your blood supply. Friday night's going to take a lot out of you."
Oh so that was it. It all came back to blood. Well my motivation to help out on that score was rather low. I grunted, noncommittally.
"I'll talk to the nutritionist about giving you something other than lima beans," said Claudia, softening her outrage after a moment. "But you have to promise me you'll eat all of your food. Vitamins, too."
I was too tired to fight her on it. "Yeah, sure," I said, then made a mental note to flush any future leftovers down the toilet. I'd have probably bristled more at the food nazism if I hadn't been subjected to going on three days of everything-else-nazism. "I'm not 6. You don't have to baby me."
Claudia's right eye twitched. "I call it as I see it."
Growl.
"Oh, don't be a grouch," she said with deliberate lightness. The smile on her face was somewhat forced. "What would you like today, we can take a horse ride around the main grounds, or hit the gym, or would you like to go swimming again."
"Can we take a walk through the woods?" I asked wistfully, knowing that the answer would be no.
Her eye twitched again but her fake grin didn't dim. "The perimeter for your anklet doesn't extend beyond the lawns. You'd get a very nasty shock if we did that."
We both looked at the bulge around my ankle, where my jeans sort of hid the tracking device. It was some sort of deal like what people under home arrest get: a box held on with a sturdy nylon strap. This one was juiced up with something akin to a cattle prod that could be remotely triggered. Nadette wasn't taking any chances on me running away from her. If I go beyond a set perimeter an alarm rings and that thing lames me until security has a chance to catch up. Or so I was told.
"Yeah, but you could turn this thing off," I wheedled. "I mean you'd be right there, and if I get ornery, you can whip my ass. I'm tiny. What could I do to you?"
The smile was gone. Okay, I'd pushed it too far. Like me, she was a bit tender when it comes to size. And I could definitely sympathize -- as a child I'd always been treated as a baby. No one took me seriously. Claudia had the opposite problem: looking much older than her actual years, and being criticized by stangers for simply acting her age. As adults it's easier, but there's always the lingering stigma of being on the tail end of the bell curve.
"How about the gym," she said. It wasn't really a question.
"Swimming," I said, just to be contrary.
"Swimming then," said Claudia, distinctly put out. "But only half an hour this time - we have a long day ahead."
Oh, well now she was just being a dick. My exercise was the only time I was allowed out of the room. "Long day of what?" I asked, skeptically. "Sitting around watching cartoons on TV?"
Her smile was back, but it wasn't exactly a friendly one. "Long day of getting you ready to impress the guests. We are going to do you over top to bottom! Believe me I'm looking forward to seeing you with a proper hair cut. I think once we get rid of the Stooge hair, you'd be quite cute."
The hair again. Really. I reached up and smoothed it down defensively. "Will I get some say on the style?" I asked.
"That depends," said Claudia, arching her brows. "Were you tied to a chair against your will while some deranged barber attacked you with a pair of scissors and a soup bowl?"
"No." Hey, Wally cut my hair. He did a decent job!
"Well then no, George, you don't get a say." She laughed. "We want you to look good after you are done. Now hurry up and grab your jacket, you are running out of swim time here."
I grabbed a windbreaker from a peg next to the make-up vanity, while Claudia waited in the dormitory hallway. Then we walked down the institutional linoleum hall to a stairwell at the end, passing the apartments of Nadettes regular harem. I looked at the various little decorations each of the doors. Some had hung messages like "My room was clean last week, sorry you missed it," and others hung posters or trinkets or dried wreaths, or other little details that made it obvious that a real person lived there - at least when their schedule dictated they provide the evening meal. Apparently, Nadette had dismissed the idea of a single feeding room in favor of she conducting her meals as private one-on-one trysts. For some reason this made me feel a bit wiggy. It seemed too personal. Too… for lack of a better word… human.
At the base of the stairwell, Claudia whipped out her keys again and slid one into a lock below a sign claiming Alarm will trigger if opened without key. Noticing my interest, Claudia briefly explained, "Fire code says we can't completely lock it. I wouldn't try it though. My guys have been told to trigger your anklet if the alarm goes off."
"What if there's a real fire?" My stomach twisted at the possibility.
"Then we'll drag you away from danger." Claudia pushed the heavy door open. "Don't worry, your safety is our first priority. Besides we both know that if this alarm goes off, it's not going to be because of a fire."
"I'm not going to run away," I asserted, bitterly. "I learned. Trust me, I learned that lesson really fucking well."
Claudia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you are right, you aren't running away from here. Because I'm not going to give you the opportunity."
"Why do you always think the worst of me?" I asked, exasperated.
"Because, George, you haven't given me any reason not to." She said it with just a trace of exhaustion in her voice.
I was silent. We strode down the cement path across the main lawns. To my right was a formal garden, all topiary and raised flower beds, most of which were in full May bloom, and beyond that loomed the dark cedar-and-log monstrosity of the Main house. To my left, across a long, long expanse of perfect lawn were the stables and a smattering of smaller outbuildings, and beyond that the woods, which I apparently would not be allowed to visit. Straight ahead was a sleek modern looking three story building, which comprised the offices of Nadette's enormous staff.
We were headed to a building which straddled the gap between the main house and the office. It first appeared as a tall peaked roof, half glass, half cedar shakes, then as we approached the rest of the lodge-like structure appeared. Claudia pushed open one of the rows of glass doors and I was immediately hit by a wave of muggy warmth and chlorine.
"I'm sorry," said Claudia, suddenly. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "It's just you don't exactly make this job easy, George."
I turned and looked at her with confusion. Then realized she was following up on our last conversation. I didn't quite know what to say in reply. "I'm sorry I'm crabby?" That wasn't true. I was mad as hell and wanted everyone to know it. I didn't want to make taking my rights away an easy job.
"You know this is wrong," I said, "This whole auction thing. Don't you? That's why you feel bad about this."
"It's not for me to make that call," said Claudia, the sympathy draining from her face. I kicked myself. For a moment there, just for a moment I thought I could have made an ally out of her, but she was back to normal. I'd squandered my chance by pushing too hard. "You should get yourself ready. The clock is ticking."
I walked sullenly over to the changing room, and slipped out of my clothes, putting on a pair of black swim shorts. Although they were baggy, that damn chastity thing did make a suspicious bulge, and of course the homing device on my leg was completely obvious. I was thankful that Nadette's pool wasn't more popular. There was no one to be shamed in front of but Claudia, and she'd seen it all before.
Claudia was still mad when I opened the door. In fact she was even angrier than when I'd left. Apparently she'd had time to mull over my words and they'd sat worse with her as time went on. "You know, that's completely unfair what you did there."
"What? Point out the truth? That I'm being sold like a piece of property? And you are helping." As long as I was taking this path, I might as take it all the way to hell.
"You just have no idea what it means to be part of a harem, do you," said Claudia. "If you did you wouldn't be laying that guilt trip on me. You know what? You need to grow up. You think I want to be putting up with a grown man's tantrums? It's embarrassing, George. You don't like the way life is treating you - well, tough. You want to look for someone to blame for this situation, you have no further to look but yourself. You ran away. You chose that. Now, you take the bad with the good, George. Bad with the good."
I felt a coldness settle into my stomach. "Tantrum is it? Listen, I never asked to be a commodity. Not once. All I want is to work, and live, and make choices and have rights like any other human being. I'm not complaining about the tithe I have to pay. I don't care that vampires are living like fucking kings on the sweat of ordinary people around the world. All I ask is for a little fucking dignity, and if that is too much for this world to give me, then there is something deeply wrong with this world."
"Look at me, George," she stood up very tall. "Do I look like a woman who has no dignity?"
"No. I mean, yeah, you have dignity."
"George, I'm going to say this as a friend, and as someone who has been where you are. Playing the martyr isn't going to get you anywhere. Vampires don't like that, and the rest of us, the harem, the part-timers, the former harem like myself, we aren't going to give you much sympathy either. Because we've been where you are at. All of us. And if we could suck it up, so can you."
I just scowled at her. Get with the program. Yeah, I got that message.
Claudia tapped my chest. "Listen George, I was there when the Great Coup went down. My daddy was stationed in Germany when it happened. I can tell you there ain't nothing in this world as scary it is to wake up one morning with your mama crying in your face saying that the Vampires had taken over the base, and your Daddy ain't coming home." Her voice broke.
I froze. The spit dried in my mouth.
"I was fourteen years old, George, when I became Harem to the guy who killed my daddy. You think you have a rough transition? You don't come close to hating Nadette the way I hated my first patron. I was glad when he sold me. Yeah, I've been sold. It happens, maybe not with this much fanfare but it does. But it doesn't matter. I cheered when Nadette took me in. And I love her. I love her and I trust her. She's one of the good ones, George, so don't you go putting on a martyr's act. You're just mad because you ran away and got caught."
She wiped her eyes. "Jesus," she swore. "Go take your swim George. Jesus fucking Christ."
"I'm sorry," I said, feeling at a total loss. Shit, that did not go well. She made one last imperious gesture with her hand, and I finally took the hint.
I dived into the pool. The initial shock-chill wore off in seconds and my body adjusted to the temperature of the water. It was warm, too warm really, more suited for lazy floating around than to the vigorous swim that I needed. I pushed all my frustration, embarrassment, and conflict into my stroke, working my body until my lungs ached and my muscles started to cramp. I crossed the length of the pool, in a loud, water flinging American crawl. When I reached the far side I flipped, caught the wall with the soles of my feet and pushed off, undulating under the pristine water until I couldn't hold my breath any longer. Then I breeched the surface, grabbed a satisfying gulp of moist air, and started pushing, pushing, pushing again. Fast as I could go.
My emotions mellowed, the way they always do. I was in my own world of me. No Claudia. No Nadette. No Vampires at all. Nothing could touch me. I was free. The thrill of conquering the water is always a heady rush. In my imagination, I was outracing the competition for the finish line. 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters - the length kept changing. Always just one more pool length more. I'd stop and rest then. Just one more. And then finally, I just couldn't keep it up anymore. It's been three years since I raced and my body just couldn't hack the pace it used to. I slowed to a stop, then moved myself to the pool's edge with a lazy hybrid stroke.
Breathing hard, I stretched my arms across the rough cement, letting the small waves bob me up and down. My eyes were closed and I breathed deep, enjoying the clean ache in my muscles.
"You are fast," said Claudia, standing over me. "Really fast."
"Made it to the state semifinals once," I said, then grimaced at the memory. It still hurt to think about throwing that race. And all because I was afraid that the vampire in the audience might notice me. Ha. Like it mattered. What a fucking waste.
"Got beat?"
"Gave up." Got scared.
She raised her eyebrow. "You don't seem the type to give up."
"I don't. Because I always regret it when I do."
I always regret it…
Sudden fear savaged my middle. I'd said too much. I glanced up to see if Claudia noticed. But she didn't seem to grasp the significance of my words. She didn't know that I'd had an epiphany. I'd seen the course of my life, past, present and future laid out ahead of me, and in that I'd seen my core.
And in that moment, with water coursing down over my face, I knew that I was going to get out of this. I was going to escape and forge my own destiny. I didn't know how, but I knew that I'd never settle for Harem life under Nadette's terms.
Claudia may have had it worse than me, and lord knows I can't challenge her on that fact. But she settled. She settled big time. Maybe she didn't think she could do better. Maybe none of the Harem thought they could. But I still do.
Claudia was right not to trust me. I was going to run away again. I just needed a plan.
Sure to her warning, I only got half an hour in the water before I was ordered out. Claudia enforced her time limits by standing there while I showered and dressed, staring at me pitilessly in an effort to get me to move faster.
In spite of this, I felt good. Something about not giving up in defeat had lifted a huge weight from my shoulders and made all the little indignities so much more bearable. I knew they were only temporary, part of the bigger fight, and put that way, yeah, yeah, I could take it. I could take anything these fuckers had to throw at me.
Claudia probably should have been a lot more suspicious of my change in attitude. But then maybe she thought that I'd realized the truth of her words and was just getting with the program. Maybe she didn't know that the sullen, angry me was the "get with the program" guy and that new cheerful me was looking at every possible avenue for screwing her over.
With water still drying on my skin, we stepped out into a brisk afternoon breeze, and walked the dozen or so yards to the Nadette's office building. There were people here, and not just the pretty type. Ordinary people of all ages, bustling up and down the corridors as if they had a lot to do and little time to do it in. For the first time it occurred to me to wonder what the hell Vampires did when they weren't feeding.
"Lady Nadette is the senior vampire in charge of human relations and obligations for the entire Midwestern area," explained Claudia. "It's a huge responsibility."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Well, you know you have vampire etiquettes, and you've got human laws, and somehow the two have to jive. Nadette's in charge of that. She works with seven states, and over a hundred protectorates, making sure everyone works together smoothly. It's a huge job."
"She does that all by herself?" I boggled.
Claudia laughed. "No, silly, there's lots of vampires under her. And humans, too."
"And who voted for her?" I asked. Claudia's eye twitched again. Man that thing was like a barometer for her. "I mean," I tempered, "How did Nadette get to be in such an important position, who gave it to her."
"I don't know," said Claudia. "I don't even try to keep up with the Vampire politics around here. There's enough of it to make your head spin, but you know, there's no point in our worrying about that stuff. That's not our problem. Trust me, there's enough day to day worries to keep us occupied without us poking our noses into that craziness."
Before I could respond to that Claudia opened a door. "We're here."
"Here" was an actual honest to god beauty salon. Apparently being in charge of vampire human relations meant not having to leave your own compound to get a hair cut. It wasn't as crass as your average Supercuts, which was my basic exposure to such things; no advertisements on the walls, no vinyl seats. One of the walls was banked with windows that looked out on the lawn, the others had landscapes and flowers and other art-by-the-yard. There were three specialized stations, but everything that wasn't state of the art beauty equipment had a homey-living room feel.
I was not surprised to see a perky young woman with three-toned hair step up. They must have passed a law saying all hairstylists must experiment on themselves. "So what are we in for?" She asked, raking me over with her eyes, and giving me that "fresh meat" feeling.
"Hair cut, and a full body wax."
The second perked me up. "Hey," I spoke up indignity. "I wasn't told about tha-"
"Oh shush!" Claudia grinned. "You are going to look great when we are done. And that's what's important."
I reminded myself it was all temporary.
It took over two hours to rip the hair off my body, during which I felt duty bound to whine and complain. Both women took this good naturedly, as though they didn't take any real stock in my grousing, which was really more annoying to me than the procedure itself. Truth is, as horrible as it sounds to smear hot wax on your skin, wait for it to harden into a nasty scab like texture, then brutally yank the whole thing off again, it's not actually that bad. No, really. In fact, confession here, back in my swimming days I did this to myself voluntarily. The whole team did. It's probably more a psychological boost than anything else, I really doubt my tummy pubes added any significant drag to my lap time. Anyway, what with the swim earlier, getting waxed was a strangely nostalgic feeling, though I did feel oddly cold. I'd forgotten that sensation.
Once that chore was done, the stylist went to town on my hair.
This was the truly tough part, because it wasn't just an aesthetic deal, it was cutting away a whole philosophical choice. Yeah, I chose the "Moe cut" when I was hiding out from vampires who do so much of their selection based on raw looks, but in my mind there was more nobility to it than just chickenshit camouflage.
Years ago, I decided that anyone who wanted me just based on my looks was not really someone I wanted to be with. I was going to make my admirers work for it - get to know the real me, beneath the paper thin vanity, and then come to love me. Then they were worthy of my attentions. Yeah, that worked for me about as well as you'd think. But it really sounded good, and somehow, in spite of that naïve and silly notion, I did occasionally find a girl who bought into it, too.
But right then, in that swivel chair, with an apron spread across my body like an oversized bib, it struck me that this philosophy was kind of a cop out. A way of avoiding the world. My looks are part of who I am, and there's no shame in being admired for that, too. And it's not like I'm that fearful in any other way. Hell, I walk off planes in foreign places all the time. I stand up in front of crowds and talk. Most people think that's terrifying. I have the potential to be brave, so why am I such a scared little shit when it comes to my looks?
You know, maybe it wasn't really my looks. Maybe it was more than that. Maybe… maybe I really didn't want to think about this after all. I swallowed and started paying more attention to this new look being foisted on me. Was she at least doing a good job?
I had had a lot of time to think while the stylist diddled with my hair. A lot of time. In fact it seemed like she was clipping every single damn hair separately, and then when she was through she went and reclipped it all. And honestly, I coudn't have that much hair to work with. No man's hair cut should taken over an hour to do. There's something just fundamentally wrong with dragging it out like that.
But the final result… well…
"Wow," said Claudia.
I didn't look like me. I mean I looked good, quite good, but it wasn't me. Without the heavy bangs rounding out my face, I looked a lot more … delicate I guess. Fragile and open, as if that's really a look I wanted to go for. What was left of my hair stood out from my head in a way that should have looked messy, but somehow worked. It was ridiculous, impractical, but even so -- on a purely aesthetic level -- yeah, I could get used to this, I suppose.
"Who knew he had a face under there," said the stylist.
"Mmm-hmmm," said Claudia. "You are going to have those vampires fighting over who can get you, I bet."
Oh yeah, now I remembered why I didn't want my hair cut.
Claudia acknowledged my attitude change on the way back to my prison. "You seem a bit happier now," she said. "I hope this means you've realized that being Harem isn't such a terrible fate. Nadette's not going to sell you to someone bad. Her standards are actually pretty high. So, it doesn't really matter where you end up, you'll have a good life, and be with good people." She laughed. "Hell, it's better than flipping burgers, for sure!"
My mind wasn't on her. I was scheming.
I could hear the distant sound of a truck's airbrakes coming from beyond the fringe of trees in back of the dormitory. We must be close to the freeway. If I could get to that, I could probably hitch hike my way out of Nadettes territory. All I needed was some way to cut off the tracking device on my ankle and I'd be home free.
"… George?"
"I'm sorry," I said belatedly. "I'm sorry I've been such an asshole around you. You are just doing your job, and I'm … I'm having a bit of a hard time getting used to mine. I mean, I'm not used to having to share my body with anyone. And I'm not used to trusting people."
The shadow of the building crossed my face, and I blinked up at it. If I was going to run, I had to do it now. Ten more steps and the opportunity would pass. But I couldn't run, because Claudia was right there, watching me like a hawk, and I had no doubt she'd chase me down before I got far. Maybe we'd wrestle on the ground a bit before she got the better of me. Maybe I could get off a punch first. But she outweighed me, and she was in better shape, and the end result would be the same. Some things were too futile for even me to consider.
"I understand. It takes time," she acknowledged. Then, oblivious of what it meant to me, she took that heavy ring of keys off her belt and unlocked the front entrance to the dormitory. "But you just have to realize, it's really quite easy. Stupidly easy, in fact. You just do what your told, and most of the time, it's summer vacation."
I stared into the maw of my prison with dread. It took willpower to step over the threshold, and Claudia seemed to notice my reluctance and place a gentle but firm hand on my back to urge me the rest of the way through. The door clanged shut behind us, taking away any trace of traffic.
And then I felt the tension release in me. A perverse moment of relief. The opportunity to run was gone - for now. I could rest and wait, go with the flow for a little bit, safe in the knowledge that another opportunity would be coming soon. And then I'd take it, and then--
And then what? That really was the question. Run back to the Portland Protectorate? Live my "summer vacation" there. Hope that Fancy Trousers turned out not to be one of the "bad" ones? If Nadette was considered good, bad might be very bad indeed. What if he's the vampire equivalent of the Marquis de Sade?
Who was Chauncey Towers anyway? Nadette had called him an "old and crusty hermit." Vestular simply said "Who knows" and skipped ahead to the next one on the list. Even Wally couldn't track down so much as a phone number for the guy. Why hadn't he been the one to taste me as a kid? And if he lives like a hermit, where would that leave me as his Harem. Would I be forced into the same isolation?
There had to be a better option. Vestular talked about a human uprising fifteen years ago. What the hell happened to it? I couldn't be the only person in the entire world who wasn't happy with the status quo. There had to be some resistance, somewhere!
That's what I had to do, I decided. Go underground. Become an activist, a rebel. Join the ranks of Vestular and his kin and make a real difference. And if I got caught, that would only put these smarmy vampires in a real difficult dilemma wouldn't it? Kill me for my insolence and lose my unique blood - or else give me the same raw deal they are offering now.
There was no way for me to lose!
We were upstairs and down the hall before I knew it, and when my moment of revelation came, I was grinning blindly at my room. I'm sure to Claudia, it must have seemed I was happy to be back in my cage.
"You know," said Claudia, surprising me out of my reverie, "I think I'm going to miss you when you are gone."
Back to chapter 9
On to chapter 11
RATING: NC-17 (This chapter PG-13)
GENRE: Porn with plot -- heavy on the plot. Action/adventure, some black humor, some romance.
PAIRINGS: George x everyone. Mostly Slash, some het, three and moresomes. Vampire sex.
WARNINGS: (this chapter) none.
WORD COUNT: 6415
A/N: For some reason this chapter was especially tough to write.
Chapter 10
Sunday came and went as a nightmarish blur, a feverish mix of pain and unspeakable exhaustion, both mental and physical. I remember being stripped somewhat roughly of my clothes and tossed into a strange small bedroom. My dignity and future in shreds, I fell into a depressive funk so profound I literally crawled into the bed provided and hid under covers white eyelet and thick down. A constant barrage of strangers came and went, dawn broke, noon came and passed, but the activity never slowed down. In the brief lulls I slept fitfully, never more than an hour or two at a time, usually only a few minutes before either a knife-stroke pang of worry would wake me or more often someone would yell in my ear and shake my shoulder and insist I do something: stand to be measured, sit to be examined, bathe, eat, talk.
I hardly remember it to be honest. And for that I'm thankful.
After they all finally left, I crashed hard, taking all of Sunday night and most of Monday with me down some deep dreamless pit. When, at last, I finally clawed my way back up to consciousness, it wasn't the end of the world after all. Life kept on going, regardless of what I felt about it. It managed to be even somewhat boring.
You know, as prison cells go, my room in Nadette's quazi-cultish compound wasn't half bad. The trappings may have been a bit on the feminine side, as you might expect from someone who generally only deals with women, but not obnoxiously so. I liked the lace curtains and the pale violet walls with little rose stencil trim. The white bed with the tall, tall gold topped bedposts, and the silk wall hanging with the sun and rainbow. I appreciated the Victorian lines of the make-up vanity. It was all curiously wholesome and soothing, like a trip to an alternate childhood where I was born a girl.
--And who the fuck am I kidding. The place was sucking the very testosterone out of my bruised balls. Christ. At least they didn't insist I wear a dress and call myself Georgina.
Tuesday afternoon found me lying in bed, dully staring at the textured ceiling when I heard the distinct scratching noise of a key in the lock. I glanced over at the featureless round metal plate set where the thumb latch for the deadbolt should be. The first thing they'd done after dumping me in here was to retool the door so that they could come in any time they fucking wanted to, but I couldn't get out.
The door shuddered, sticking just a bit on the threshold, then swung outwards into the hall, and Claudia, my "day manager," strode into the room. She was a statuesque strawberry blonde -- high side of six-feet she'd told me when, seeing no point in sacrificing curiosity for tact, I'd asked her point blank. Time had been very good to her. Although she was pushing forty hard, she was in better shape than most twenty-somethings: lean and athletic, flat stomach, and strong looking arms. Good looking breasts, too, which I was trying to ignore, because thinking about that kind of thing just led to frustration. When she wasn't babysitting me, she ran the security for the compound. As Nadette's biggest security risk, I was her priority.
"Hup hup hup," she said cheerfully, clapping her hands gingerly together around a huge set of keys, like some camp councilor trying to rouse enthusiasm. I watched her attach the keys to her belt with unabashed wistfulness. That was my freedom hanging there, jingling against the swell of her thigh - the key to my room, to the monitoring cuff strapped to my ankle, possibly even the one to the lock on my cock.
"No time for sleeping. We need to get your blood moving! Did you eat your breakfast?"
I growled angrily at her, letting her know that I wasn't going to cooperate with the happy camper bullshit. I was in a foul mood. Not quite as foul as the one I'd nursed all Monday, but still pretty foul.
Her smile didn't fade but the corner of her eye twitched, and I felt the small bright flash of impotent joy.
"Do you need your sheets changed?" She asked sweetly. Well, touché.
"No," I said quickly. Added to the general humiliation, I'd had a hell of a wet dream Sunday night, judging by the amount of mess I woke up to the next afternoon. I assume I enjoyed it. I don't really know, I can't remember it at all, but at least it relieved the blue-balls ache quite a bit.
It did nothing to relieve the general sense of sexual frustration. The chastity tube was a heinous device that pinched if I had the temerity to have an erection. I'd done my best the last two and a half days to not think of anything that would arouse me. You might think that would be easy given how pissed off I was about my situation, but it had become the preverbal elephant.
My visitors were all women, and good looking ones at that. Some pixie faced, some handsome, all slim and nubile, their clothes hugging them in ways that accentuated their curves, sexuality barely hidden by the cut of their blouses. Argh.
And when I wasn't with one of them, I was left with thoughts of Nadette and Amy and the way their identical skirts climbed their thighs as they sat, giving forbidden glimpses of the smooth pale flesh riding up from the knee into tantalizing shadow. It was hard not to think of the sexual feelings I'd had in Nadette's presence… Amy's soft small hands and plump lips… and the sensation of her going down on me….
I tried thinking of men instead, men I'd worked with, my father, generic old guys at a generic park playing generic board games. Jeffrey… no not him. Not him. Wally! Pure, innocent, geeky Wally. Wally at his computer. Wally clowning around on the sofa. Wrestling for the remote. Wally wearing a towel slung low over his hips, abs defined, the swell of his buttocks, small perky nipples drawn up tight against the cold air, still wet from the shower. And oh, god that didn't work either.
Computers… porn. Baseball… hopelessly phallic, besides I didn't even like the game. Work, Jeffrey. Cars, Nadette. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I hated, hated that fucking chastity sleeve. Ow.
"Well, you don't want to hang out around here," Claudia went on cheerfully ignorant of my distress. "Let's go get some fresh air and do something fun."
Yes, please! Anything to stop thinking.
I rolled out of bed and hunted for the insanely expensive designer tennis shoes Nadette had so generously provided in place of the common sense and comfortable work shoes she'd stolen. None of my belongings had followed me into this room. My luggage was gone, probably never made it off the Greyhound bus. My I ♥ Chicago bag, lap top, and even my phone had been carried off during the stripping process, with no promises given that I'd ever get any of them back.
In their stead I'd been given a closet full of designer shit, which had been dumped unceremoniously on me, price tags attached, that first confusing afternoon of my capture. It made me feel uncomfortably in Nadette's debt, which annoyed me because I'd in no way asked for her to throw away her money on me like this. She could have simply fetched my clothes from the bus, or dressed me in Goodwill cast offs - I wouldn't have cared, but instead she'd spent nearly four grand on a wardrobe for a guy she didn't even plan to keep. What the fuck.
Maybe it was an image thing -- she didn't want a guy in non-designer duds sullying up her campus. Maybe. But the cynical side of me suspected she was just showing off that she had no actual need of the money I would fetch her. She was just putting me through the humiliation of an auction as some sort of punishment for being a defiant prick.
As a final proof that she was selling me downriver purely out of hatefulness, the one thing she did give me back was my wallet, including the $465 of contingency money I had left. Have back your cash, she seemed to say, while I make sure you'll never have the opportunity to spend a dime of it. Nonetheless I found it comforting to have the wallet back. There was a lot of sentimental shit in there I really didn't want to lose.
The only thing missing was the inaccurate bloodtrust card -- no more Greyhound bus rides for me. As if that were really an issue with all the other security measures Nadette had me under.
Bah.
While I finished putting on my shoes, Claudia had tracked down the remains of my breakfast in the garbage can. She suddenly made a disapproving squawk and put her hands on her hips. "George! Really!" she said scornfully. "You aren't going to make me watch you eat your meals are you?"
I paused in tugging the bottom of my jeans back over the tracking device strapped to my right ankle. "What are you going on about? I ate."
"There's beans in the trash!" she said, pointing, as if I might actually deny their existence.
"I don't like lima beans." I shrugged. "So, what, spending two hundred dollars on single pair of pants isn't wasteful, but throwing out twenty cents worth of vegetables is?"
"That's not the point, George. Your diet was drawn up specifically for you." She looked put out. "Now I'm going to have to order more for your dinner to make up for it. You need to be well nourished to build up your blood supply. Friday night's going to take a lot out of you."
Oh so that was it. It all came back to blood. Well my motivation to help out on that score was rather low. I grunted, noncommittally.
"I'll talk to the nutritionist about giving you something other than lima beans," said Claudia, softening her outrage after a moment. "But you have to promise me you'll eat all of your food. Vitamins, too."
I was too tired to fight her on it. "Yeah, sure," I said, then made a mental note to flush any future leftovers down the toilet. I'd have probably bristled more at the food nazism if I hadn't been subjected to going on three days of everything-else-nazism. "I'm not 6. You don't have to baby me."
Claudia's right eye twitched. "I call it as I see it."
Growl.
"Oh, don't be a grouch," she said with deliberate lightness. The smile on her face was somewhat forced. "What would you like today, we can take a horse ride around the main grounds, or hit the gym, or would you like to go swimming again."
"Can we take a walk through the woods?" I asked wistfully, knowing that the answer would be no.
Her eye twitched again but her fake grin didn't dim. "The perimeter for your anklet doesn't extend beyond the lawns. You'd get a very nasty shock if we did that."
We both looked at the bulge around my ankle, where my jeans sort of hid the tracking device. It was some sort of deal like what people under home arrest get: a box held on with a sturdy nylon strap. This one was juiced up with something akin to a cattle prod that could be remotely triggered. Nadette wasn't taking any chances on me running away from her. If I go beyond a set perimeter an alarm rings and that thing lames me until security has a chance to catch up. Or so I was told.
"Yeah, but you could turn this thing off," I wheedled. "I mean you'd be right there, and if I get ornery, you can whip my ass. I'm tiny. What could I do to you?"
The smile was gone. Okay, I'd pushed it too far. Like me, she was a bit tender when it comes to size. And I could definitely sympathize -- as a child I'd always been treated as a baby. No one took me seriously. Claudia had the opposite problem: looking much older than her actual years, and being criticized by stangers for simply acting her age. As adults it's easier, but there's always the lingering stigma of being on the tail end of the bell curve.
"How about the gym," she said. It wasn't really a question.
"Swimming," I said, just to be contrary.
"Swimming then," said Claudia, distinctly put out. "But only half an hour this time - we have a long day ahead."
Oh, well now she was just being a dick. My exercise was the only time I was allowed out of the room. "Long day of what?" I asked, skeptically. "Sitting around watching cartoons on TV?"
Her smile was back, but it wasn't exactly a friendly one. "Long day of getting you ready to impress the guests. We are going to do you over top to bottom! Believe me I'm looking forward to seeing you with a proper hair cut. I think once we get rid of the Stooge hair, you'd be quite cute."
The hair again. Really. I reached up and smoothed it down defensively. "Will I get some say on the style?" I asked.
"That depends," said Claudia, arching her brows. "Were you tied to a chair against your will while some deranged barber attacked you with a pair of scissors and a soup bowl?"
"No." Hey, Wally cut my hair. He did a decent job!
"Well then no, George, you don't get a say." She laughed. "We want you to look good after you are done. Now hurry up and grab your jacket, you are running out of swim time here."
I grabbed a windbreaker from a peg next to the make-up vanity, while Claudia waited in the dormitory hallway. Then we walked down the institutional linoleum hall to a stairwell at the end, passing the apartments of Nadettes regular harem. I looked at the various little decorations each of the doors. Some had hung messages like "My room was clean last week, sorry you missed it," and others hung posters or trinkets or dried wreaths, or other little details that made it obvious that a real person lived there - at least when their schedule dictated they provide the evening meal. Apparently, Nadette had dismissed the idea of a single feeding room in favor of she conducting her meals as private one-on-one trysts. For some reason this made me feel a bit wiggy. It seemed too personal. Too… for lack of a better word… human.
At the base of the stairwell, Claudia whipped out her keys again and slid one into a lock below a sign claiming Alarm will trigger if opened without key. Noticing my interest, Claudia briefly explained, "Fire code says we can't completely lock it. I wouldn't try it though. My guys have been told to trigger your anklet if the alarm goes off."
"What if there's a real fire?" My stomach twisted at the possibility.
"Then we'll drag you away from danger." Claudia pushed the heavy door open. "Don't worry, your safety is our first priority. Besides we both know that if this alarm goes off, it's not going to be because of a fire."
"I'm not going to run away," I asserted, bitterly. "I learned. Trust me, I learned that lesson really fucking well."
Claudia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you are right, you aren't running away from here. Because I'm not going to give you the opportunity."
"Why do you always think the worst of me?" I asked, exasperated.
"Because, George, you haven't given me any reason not to." She said it with just a trace of exhaustion in her voice.
I was silent. We strode down the cement path across the main lawns. To my right was a formal garden, all topiary and raised flower beds, most of which were in full May bloom, and beyond that loomed the dark cedar-and-log monstrosity of the Main house. To my left, across a long, long expanse of perfect lawn were the stables and a smattering of smaller outbuildings, and beyond that the woods, which I apparently would not be allowed to visit. Straight ahead was a sleek modern looking three story building, which comprised the offices of Nadette's enormous staff.
We were headed to a building which straddled the gap between the main house and the office. It first appeared as a tall peaked roof, half glass, half cedar shakes, then as we approached the rest of the lodge-like structure appeared. Claudia pushed open one of the rows of glass doors and I was immediately hit by a wave of muggy warmth and chlorine.
"I'm sorry," said Claudia, suddenly. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "It's just you don't exactly make this job easy, George."
I turned and looked at her with confusion. Then realized she was following up on our last conversation. I didn't quite know what to say in reply. "I'm sorry I'm crabby?" That wasn't true. I was mad as hell and wanted everyone to know it. I didn't want to make taking my rights away an easy job.
"You know this is wrong," I said, "This whole auction thing. Don't you? That's why you feel bad about this."
"It's not for me to make that call," said Claudia, the sympathy draining from her face. I kicked myself. For a moment there, just for a moment I thought I could have made an ally out of her, but she was back to normal. I'd squandered my chance by pushing too hard. "You should get yourself ready. The clock is ticking."
I walked sullenly over to the changing room, and slipped out of my clothes, putting on a pair of black swim shorts. Although they were baggy, that damn chastity thing did make a suspicious bulge, and of course the homing device on my leg was completely obvious. I was thankful that Nadette's pool wasn't more popular. There was no one to be shamed in front of but Claudia, and she'd seen it all before.
Claudia was still mad when I opened the door. In fact she was even angrier than when I'd left. Apparently she'd had time to mull over my words and they'd sat worse with her as time went on. "You know, that's completely unfair what you did there."
"What? Point out the truth? That I'm being sold like a piece of property? And you are helping." As long as I was taking this path, I might as take it all the way to hell.
"You just have no idea what it means to be part of a harem, do you," said Claudia. "If you did you wouldn't be laying that guilt trip on me. You know what? You need to grow up. You think I want to be putting up with a grown man's tantrums? It's embarrassing, George. You don't like the way life is treating you - well, tough. You want to look for someone to blame for this situation, you have no further to look but yourself. You ran away. You chose that. Now, you take the bad with the good, George. Bad with the good."
I felt a coldness settle into my stomach. "Tantrum is it? Listen, I never asked to be a commodity. Not once. All I want is to work, and live, and make choices and have rights like any other human being. I'm not complaining about the tithe I have to pay. I don't care that vampires are living like fucking kings on the sweat of ordinary people around the world. All I ask is for a little fucking dignity, and if that is too much for this world to give me, then there is something deeply wrong with this world."
"Look at me, George," she stood up very tall. "Do I look like a woman who has no dignity?"
"No. I mean, yeah, you have dignity."
"George, I'm going to say this as a friend, and as someone who has been where you are. Playing the martyr isn't going to get you anywhere. Vampires don't like that, and the rest of us, the harem, the part-timers, the former harem like myself, we aren't going to give you much sympathy either. Because we've been where you are at. All of us. And if we could suck it up, so can you."
I just scowled at her. Get with the program. Yeah, I got that message.
Claudia tapped my chest. "Listen George, I was there when the Great Coup went down. My daddy was stationed in Germany when it happened. I can tell you there ain't nothing in this world as scary it is to wake up one morning with your mama crying in your face saying that the Vampires had taken over the base, and your Daddy ain't coming home." Her voice broke.
I froze. The spit dried in my mouth.
"I was fourteen years old, George, when I became Harem to the guy who killed my daddy. You think you have a rough transition? You don't come close to hating Nadette the way I hated my first patron. I was glad when he sold me. Yeah, I've been sold. It happens, maybe not with this much fanfare but it does. But it doesn't matter. I cheered when Nadette took me in. And I love her. I love her and I trust her. She's one of the good ones, George, so don't you go putting on a martyr's act. You're just mad because you ran away and got caught."
She wiped her eyes. "Jesus," she swore. "Go take your swim George. Jesus fucking Christ."
"I'm sorry," I said, feeling at a total loss. Shit, that did not go well. She made one last imperious gesture with her hand, and I finally took the hint.
I dived into the pool. The initial shock-chill wore off in seconds and my body adjusted to the temperature of the water. It was warm, too warm really, more suited for lazy floating around than to the vigorous swim that I needed. I pushed all my frustration, embarrassment, and conflict into my stroke, working my body until my lungs ached and my muscles started to cramp. I crossed the length of the pool, in a loud, water flinging American crawl. When I reached the far side I flipped, caught the wall with the soles of my feet and pushed off, undulating under the pristine water until I couldn't hold my breath any longer. Then I breeched the surface, grabbed a satisfying gulp of moist air, and started pushing, pushing, pushing again. Fast as I could go.
My emotions mellowed, the way they always do. I was in my own world of me. No Claudia. No Nadette. No Vampires at all. Nothing could touch me. I was free. The thrill of conquering the water is always a heady rush. In my imagination, I was outracing the competition for the finish line. 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters - the length kept changing. Always just one more pool length more. I'd stop and rest then. Just one more. And then finally, I just couldn't keep it up anymore. It's been three years since I raced and my body just couldn't hack the pace it used to. I slowed to a stop, then moved myself to the pool's edge with a lazy hybrid stroke.
Breathing hard, I stretched my arms across the rough cement, letting the small waves bob me up and down. My eyes were closed and I breathed deep, enjoying the clean ache in my muscles.
"You are fast," said Claudia, standing over me. "Really fast."
"Made it to the state semifinals once," I said, then grimaced at the memory. It still hurt to think about throwing that race. And all because I was afraid that the vampire in the audience might notice me. Ha. Like it mattered. What a fucking waste.
"Got beat?"
"Gave up." Got scared.
She raised her eyebrow. "You don't seem the type to give up."
"I don't. Because I always regret it when I do."
I always regret it…
Sudden fear savaged my middle. I'd said too much. I glanced up to see if Claudia noticed. But she didn't seem to grasp the significance of my words. She didn't know that I'd had an epiphany. I'd seen the course of my life, past, present and future laid out ahead of me, and in that I'd seen my core.
And in that moment, with water coursing down over my face, I knew that I was going to get out of this. I was going to escape and forge my own destiny. I didn't know how, but I knew that I'd never settle for Harem life under Nadette's terms.
Claudia may have had it worse than me, and lord knows I can't challenge her on that fact. But she settled. She settled big time. Maybe she didn't think she could do better. Maybe none of the Harem thought they could. But I still do.
Claudia was right not to trust me. I was going to run away again. I just needed a plan.
Sure to her warning, I only got half an hour in the water before I was ordered out. Claudia enforced her time limits by standing there while I showered and dressed, staring at me pitilessly in an effort to get me to move faster.
In spite of this, I felt good. Something about not giving up in defeat had lifted a huge weight from my shoulders and made all the little indignities so much more bearable. I knew they were only temporary, part of the bigger fight, and put that way, yeah, yeah, I could take it. I could take anything these fuckers had to throw at me.
Claudia probably should have been a lot more suspicious of my change in attitude. But then maybe she thought that I'd realized the truth of her words and was just getting with the program. Maybe she didn't know that the sullen, angry me was the "get with the program" guy and that new cheerful me was looking at every possible avenue for screwing her over.
With water still drying on my skin, we stepped out into a brisk afternoon breeze, and walked the dozen or so yards to the Nadette's office building. There were people here, and not just the pretty type. Ordinary people of all ages, bustling up and down the corridors as if they had a lot to do and little time to do it in. For the first time it occurred to me to wonder what the hell Vampires did when they weren't feeding.
"Lady Nadette is the senior vampire in charge of human relations and obligations for the entire Midwestern area," explained Claudia. "It's a huge responsibility."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Well, you know you have vampire etiquettes, and you've got human laws, and somehow the two have to jive. Nadette's in charge of that. She works with seven states, and over a hundred protectorates, making sure everyone works together smoothly. It's a huge job."
"She does that all by herself?" I boggled.
Claudia laughed. "No, silly, there's lots of vampires under her. And humans, too."
"And who voted for her?" I asked. Claudia's eye twitched again. Man that thing was like a barometer for her. "I mean," I tempered, "How did Nadette get to be in such an important position, who gave it to her."
"I don't know," said Claudia. "I don't even try to keep up with the Vampire politics around here. There's enough of it to make your head spin, but you know, there's no point in our worrying about that stuff. That's not our problem. Trust me, there's enough day to day worries to keep us occupied without us poking our noses into that craziness."
Before I could respond to that Claudia opened a door. "We're here."
"Here" was an actual honest to god beauty salon. Apparently being in charge of vampire human relations meant not having to leave your own compound to get a hair cut. It wasn't as crass as your average Supercuts, which was my basic exposure to such things; no advertisements on the walls, no vinyl seats. One of the walls was banked with windows that looked out on the lawn, the others had landscapes and flowers and other art-by-the-yard. There were three specialized stations, but everything that wasn't state of the art beauty equipment had a homey-living room feel.
I was not surprised to see a perky young woman with three-toned hair step up. They must have passed a law saying all hairstylists must experiment on themselves. "So what are we in for?" She asked, raking me over with her eyes, and giving me that "fresh meat" feeling.
"Hair cut, and a full body wax."
The second perked me up. "Hey," I spoke up indignity. "I wasn't told about tha-"
"Oh shush!" Claudia grinned. "You are going to look great when we are done. And that's what's important."
I reminded myself it was all temporary.
It took over two hours to rip the hair off my body, during which I felt duty bound to whine and complain. Both women took this good naturedly, as though they didn't take any real stock in my grousing, which was really more annoying to me than the procedure itself. Truth is, as horrible as it sounds to smear hot wax on your skin, wait for it to harden into a nasty scab like texture, then brutally yank the whole thing off again, it's not actually that bad. No, really. In fact, confession here, back in my swimming days I did this to myself voluntarily. The whole team did. It's probably more a psychological boost than anything else, I really doubt my tummy pubes added any significant drag to my lap time. Anyway, what with the swim earlier, getting waxed was a strangely nostalgic feeling, though I did feel oddly cold. I'd forgotten that sensation.
Once that chore was done, the stylist went to town on my hair.
This was the truly tough part, because it wasn't just an aesthetic deal, it was cutting away a whole philosophical choice. Yeah, I chose the "Moe cut" when I was hiding out from vampires who do so much of their selection based on raw looks, but in my mind there was more nobility to it than just chickenshit camouflage.
Years ago, I decided that anyone who wanted me just based on my looks was not really someone I wanted to be with. I was going to make my admirers work for it - get to know the real me, beneath the paper thin vanity, and then come to love me. Then they were worthy of my attentions. Yeah, that worked for me about as well as you'd think. But it really sounded good, and somehow, in spite of that naïve and silly notion, I did occasionally find a girl who bought into it, too.
But right then, in that swivel chair, with an apron spread across my body like an oversized bib, it struck me that this philosophy was kind of a cop out. A way of avoiding the world. My looks are part of who I am, and there's no shame in being admired for that, too. And it's not like I'm that fearful in any other way. Hell, I walk off planes in foreign places all the time. I stand up in front of crowds and talk. Most people think that's terrifying. I have the potential to be brave, so why am I such a scared little shit when it comes to my looks?
You know, maybe it wasn't really my looks. Maybe it was more than that. Maybe… maybe I really didn't want to think about this after all. I swallowed and started paying more attention to this new look being foisted on me. Was she at least doing a good job?
I had had a lot of time to think while the stylist diddled with my hair. A lot of time. In fact it seemed like she was clipping every single damn hair separately, and then when she was through she went and reclipped it all. And honestly, I coudn't have that much hair to work with. No man's hair cut should taken over an hour to do. There's something just fundamentally wrong with dragging it out like that.
But the final result… well…
"Wow," said Claudia.
I didn't look like me. I mean I looked good, quite good, but it wasn't me. Without the heavy bangs rounding out my face, I looked a lot more … delicate I guess. Fragile and open, as if that's really a look I wanted to go for. What was left of my hair stood out from my head in a way that should have looked messy, but somehow worked. It was ridiculous, impractical, but even so -- on a purely aesthetic level -- yeah, I could get used to this, I suppose.
"Who knew he had a face under there," said the stylist.
"Mmm-hmmm," said Claudia. "You are going to have those vampires fighting over who can get you, I bet."
Oh yeah, now I remembered why I didn't want my hair cut.
Claudia acknowledged my attitude change on the way back to my prison. "You seem a bit happier now," she said. "I hope this means you've realized that being Harem isn't such a terrible fate. Nadette's not going to sell you to someone bad. Her standards are actually pretty high. So, it doesn't really matter where you end up, you'll have a good life, and be with good people." She laughed. "Hell, it's better than flipping burgers, for sure!"
My mind wasn't on her. I was scheming.
I could hear the distant sound of a truck's airbrakes coming from beyond the fringe of trees in back of the dormitory. We must be close to the freeway. If I could get to that, I could probably hitch hike my way out of Nadettes territory. All I needed was some way to cut off the tracking device on my ankle and I'd be home free.
"… George?"
"I'm sorry," I said belatedly. "I'm sorry I've been such an asshole around you. You are just doing your job, and I'm … I'm having a bit of a hard time getting used to mine. I mean, I'm not used to having to share my body with anyone. And I'm not used to trusting people."
The shadow of the building crossed my face, and I blinked up at it. If I was going to run, I had to do it now. Ten more steps and the opportunity would pass. But I couldn't run, because Claudia was right there, watching me like a hawk, and I had no doubt she'd chase me down before I got far. Maybe we'd wrestle on the ground a bit before she got the better of me. Maybe I could get off a punch first. But she outweighed me, and she was in better shape, and the end result would be the same. Some things were too futile for even me to consider.
"I understand. It takes time," she acknowledged. Then, oblivious of what it meant to me, she took that heavy ring of keys off her belt and unlocked the front entrance to the dormitory. "But you just have to realize, it's really quite easy. Stupidly easy, in fact. You just do what your told, and most of the time, it's summer vacation."
I stared into the maw of my prison with dread. It took willpower to step over the threshold, and Claudia seemed to notice my reluctance and place a gentle but firm hand on my back to urge me the rest of the way through. The door clanged shut behind us, taking away any trace of traffic.
And then I felt the tension release in me. A perverse moment of relief. The opportunity to run was gone - for now. I could rest and wait, go with the flow for a little bit, safe in the knowledge that another opportunity would be coming soon. And then I'd take it, and then--
And then what? That really was the question. Run back to the Portland Protectorate? Live my "summer vacation" there. Hope that Fancy Trousers turned out not to be one of the "bad" ones? If Nadette was considered good, bad might be very bad indeed. What if he's the vampire equivalent of the Marquis de Sade?
Who was Chauncey Towers anyway? Nadette had called him an "old and crusty hermit." Vestular simply said "Who knows" and skipped ahead to the next one on the list. Even Wally couldn't track down so much as a phone number for the guy. Why hadn't he been the one to taste me as a kid? And if he lives like a hermit, where would that leave me as his Harem. Would I be forced into the same isolation?
There had to be a better option. Vestular talked about a human uprising fifteen years ago. What the hell happened to it? I couldn't be the only person in the entire world who wasn't happy with the status quo. There had to be some resistance, somewhere!
That's what I had to do, I decided. Go underground. Become an activist, a rebel. Join the ranks of Vestular and his kin and make a real difference. And if I got caught, that would only put these smarmy vampires in a real difficult dilemma wouldn't it? Kill me for my insolence and lose my unique blood - or else give me the same raw deal they are offering now.
There was no way for me to lose!
We were upstairs and down the hall before I knew it, and when my moment of revelation came, I was grinning blindly at my room. I'm sure to Claudia, it must have seemed I was happy to be back in my cage.
"You know," said Claudia, surprising me out of my reverie, "I think I'm going to miss you when you are gone."
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